The Blank Note
by DeltaFire
Summary: When Clyde finds a blank, black notebook, he's immediately curious. But when he discovers the terrible secrets surrounding it, what will he do, and how can anyone stop him? Will Clyde fall to the note's power, or will he resist his darkness?
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

**Names**

By all accounts, Clyde Nickelson was a normal person. He was quirky, maybe, but the general consensus was that Clyde was a normal 16 year old kid. He wasn't particularly strange or out of place, other than being a bright student. Even then, not much notice was paid to this, as he wasn't a genius like Steven Douglass, or an extraordinary debater like Sarah Kinley, but he dabbled. If you were to take every person on earth, and line them up from sane to insane, Clyde probably would be somewhere in the middle, though maybe leaning more towards sane. It's in this mindset that the story is told, the story of the notebook.

Clyde was putting his school supplies back in his backpack during his second to last period when he noticed it. He felt something in the pocket in front of the main one, which he put all his stuff in. This obviously sparked curiosity into him, as he wondered what he had forgotten about leaving in his backpack, in this pocket no less. He never used it, so the suspense was thickening. He unzipped the pocket, fumbling with the zipper. When he finally got it open to the point where he could look inside, he caught a glimpse of it. He opened the pocket up more, and pulled it out. It was a notebook.

The cover was black and unadorned. It was a thin notebook, maybe containing… 100… maybe 80 pages. The pages were cream in color, with small lines to write. Nothing was on the inside, so where it came from was a mystery. Clyde thought that maybe someone had lost it, but it seemed like a new notebook, and it was too thin for any long term work to really be done. The back didn't have any brand on it at all. Maybe it was one of Clyde's, but he dismissed this thought, as he probably would have remembered a notebook like this. He thought about keeping it, but if it did belong to someone, then he shouldn't mess with it. He finally decided that since no writing was anywhere in the notebook, he could just keep it and say he had one like it. He opened the cover to see that there were ripped pages in it, almost completely gone save for some scraps.

Once at home, he pulled out the notebook once more. It had a sort of pull, an almost calming feeling to having it in your hands. To some extent, he was hesitant to write anything on it. It felt like, with so few pages, what could you write that could constitute the use of a page? He thought about this, fingering a mechanical pencil on his desk lazily. He finally decided to just use the notebook for his English assignment, as that seemed to be the only thing to do with it. The assignment was relatively easy, just write a paragraph about one of your heroes. This stumped Clyde. He knew he should choose an actual person, since he didn't know his English teacher very well, and they could very well take off points for that, but at the same time, he also didn't want to limit himself to real people. He decided to go with his favorite entertainer, Larry King. He researched some stuff for the subject, and, after some sites of Wikipedia, he finally wrote the paper. He wrote the title: '_My heroes: Larry King'_. He then wrote the paper itself, but he didn't put that much work into it. After about five minutes, he deemed the paper finished, and he closed the notebook, putting it into his backpack. He was about to leave it at that, but he grabbed the notebook again, if only to inspect it. He ran his hand down the cover, feeling the material. It was sort of like what stock paper would be if it was too rigid to be bent easily. He liked how it felt in his hands, for some reason. He opened the notebook, flipping through the pages, until he saw something. He flipped back, and he saw, somewhere between the middle and the end of the notebook, was some writing.

The pencil strokes were clear and easily legible, but the message it conveyed left one wondering.

_Sarah Kinley_

_Commits suicide on November 23, 2014 at 12:45 AM_

_Slits wrists with a knife smuggles into school. Quietly commits the suicide in the second floor girl's bathroom. Writes note with torn out piece of notebook paper written as such: 'I can't take this life anymore, the world suffocates me like a noose. I'm just giving it a helping hand.' Which she hides in the front pocket of her shirt. Dies almost immediately after completing the cuts, at 12:45 AM._

Clyde didn't know what to make of the note. He didn't really know Sarah personally, but he could clearly tell that she would never commit suicide. As far as he could tell from the few conversations he's had with her, and about her, she has a loving family, a self-imposed work ethic, and she deals with stress calmly and orderly. She would never do something like this. Even so, Clyde didn't want people getting the wrong idea. He tore out the page from the notebook, careful to rip it out cleanly. He didn't want his parents seeing the note, so he wouldn't want to throw it away in the trash can downstairs. He decided to crumple it up and stuff it in the front pocket of his backpack. Remembering the note itself, he checked his calendar. Today was November 3, so, if the note was true, Kinley would die 20 days from now. Clyde knew it was silly to run that hypothetical, but it unnerved him, the note.

The next day was pretty normal for him. He got up, took a shower, brushed his teeth. Nothing seemed out of place. It wasn't until he got to school that the day turned strange. It started in English class. Everyone was supposed to read their reports on their heroes. Clyde was called on after about five students went up. He pulled out the notebook, and opened the cover to his report. He walked to the front, and began talking. As soon as the title was read however, there was a tenseness in the air, but Clyde either misinterpreted that atmosphere, or ignored it entirely. When he finished, he sat back down. George, the student sitting next to him, whispered in his ear. "Did you hear about what happened to Larry King?" he said, his voice hushed. Clyde's interest was ignited, and he responded.

"No, what happened?"

"Last night, Larry King died of a heart attack, out of the blue,"

"What?"  
>"Yeah, I know,"<p>

"But doesn't he have a heart condition? Seems natural,"

"But that's the thing. His heart attack wasn't caused by his condition,"

"That's strange…" Clyde murmured. The teacher hushed them both before the conversation could continue.

Later, during lunch, he began to wonder. Why did Larry King die that night? What was going on at the time, and why was it at the same time I wrote the report?

The report. It dawned on him that maybe the report had something to do with it. But it couldn't have, could it? He puzzled over it until he got back home.

Upon entering his room, he closed the door. He pulled out the notebook, as well as the note he'd ripped out. He examined both his report, and the strange note. What was the similarity here? His report was pretty basic, he never referenced Larry King dying, but the note clearly say that Kinley commits suicide. So what was the connection?

He inspected the note's wording closer, trying to find a clue, and he stumbled upon something strange. The way the note was written heavily relied on details. It couldn't be a threat either, since the exact moment of death is specified, rather than the time the cuts are made. A normal person would write the time she cuts herself instead of writing it as if she will die later than that. So why was it written in this way?

Clyde, desperate for parallels, put the papers side by side, and listed everything that was similar between the two messages. He didn't come up with much, but one feature stood out.

The name. Both the notes had their name on it. Clyde wondered about this. He pulled up his laptop and searched for famous celebrities. He scrolled through some articles before making a decision. He picked out the two people he hated the most, and decided between the two. He made the call to only write one.

Justin Bieber. Unlike any other victim, there would be clear indication that his hypothesis was correct. He pulled out a ballpoint pen, and gently wrote out Justin's full name. He then looked up prison records. He found a website that kept track of the prison accommodation, by name. He searched through the names, and chose three criminals held in isolation. He then put the notebook back in his bag, and continued his day.

The next day, before Clyde went back to school, he checked the website he had previously been on, with the prison records. He refreshed the page, but the roster still had the names he had written. He breathed a sigh of relief, glad he was wrong.

But when, he got to school, he was told a different story. There was a huge buzz, and Clyde wanted to know, even though he had a sneaking suspicion of what to expect. He wandered around a little bit, trying to see what the subject was. One of the girl's lockers he passed had a picture of Justin Bieber, with the dates 1994-2014 written on the bottom, so his suspicions were confirmed, but he still wanted some more substantial evidence. After a while he went up to a fellow student of his, Steven Douglass, to ask.

"Hey, what's going on?"

"Nothing much," Steven replied, looking on listlessly. Clyde thought how best to approach the topic, but couldn't develop a plan.

"So, what's everyone talking about?" He asked, being less subtle than he would have liked. Steven flicked his eyes to Clyde for a second before turning his attention back to the hallway.

"I'm not sure, something about Justin Bieber," he says.

"How do you figure?" Clyde asks.

"Well, besides the obvious constant snippet of name, notice how the majority of these come from groups of girls," he pointed out, and Clyde saw what he meant. Though a few guys were talking about the hyped topic, the vast majority of those seeming to be discussing the issue happened to be girls.

"I see what you mean. What do you think the news is about?" Clyde continued, hoping to reach the pivotal topic.

"That, I'm not sure about, but I might have an idea," Steven mused.

"I have a theory," he replied, hoping to win some respect from Steven.

"Let's hear it then," he said, intrigue not visible outwardly, but Clyde felt that he was truly fascinated.

"I think Justin Bieber might be dead, or might have been pronounced dead. I say this because the picture on that locker says '1994-2014'. I don't know when Bieber was born, but because of his age range, we can assume this is his lifetime, which implies that he died recently, sometime this year. The big uproar about it suggests it happened sometime very recently, within the week or the past two days maybe,"

"Interesting deduction, but it raises the question of how he died," Steven retorted. He was friends with Kinley, so Clyde wasn't surprised how much like a debate this conversation was.

Kinley. Clyde couldn't keep Steven's gaze, and he walked away, mumbling an excuse to him as he left.

Clyde didn't know if he should tell Steven about the note. Then something clicked together that he didn't realize until now. Why did Bieber die, but not the prisoners? Clyde quickly pulled out his laptop and checked the site again, but the names still remained on screen. The site guaranteed updates every six hours, so it made no sense that they wouldn't have updated it, especially sense new names appeared on screen, and older ones had left since he'd last checked. So what was the difference between the two? Clyde almost thought it had to do with their fame, but if Sarah really was going to die, then that would be meaningless. He pondered the issue, but finally just dropped it, deciding to worry about after he got more time to experiment with the notebook.

The final bell rang after so long, and Clyde couldn't have been happier. He packed up everything, made some small talk, all while trying to get home as fast as possible. He checked his phone, and his dreams were crushed. His mom wasn't going to be here until 5:00 PM. Seeing as it was 3:15, that was a ways away. He sighed, and entered the library.

The library at their school was pretty big, with at least a dozen wide shelves of books in the center, obscuring people's view of others. Clyde figured he'd be able to experiment now, and check later. He looked up various criminals from the site he already had up, and then looked up those people on Google. He searched five people, but only three of them had some sort of social media. He searched through those three, but nothing really stood out. He decided to write all five names in the notebook, just to see what happened. The next update would be in four hours, so all he had to do was wait. While doing this, he searched up Justin Bieber's death. He hadn't expected as many results as he got, but there they were. Apparently, he had died at 4:47 of a sudden heart attack, killing him instantly. Clyde tried to remember anything about the time, but he couldn't. Still, it probably would have been around that time when he wrote the name, so the elapsed time between writing and death seemed to be a small window. What bothered with was the cause. It was the same as King's death, but why? It didn't make sense, especially considering the fact that Kinley's killer had written her death as a suicide, which raised the question of how the cause of death is established. Can someone just write down drunk driving and it will happen? It seemed unlikely. It also seemed that the time can be established, but what is the default, or is there one? As far as Clyde could tell, the default cause was a heart attack, and the default time is somewhere is the 1-4 minute range. He decided not to worry too much about it, he could test that out later. But one thing still stuck with him in his mind.

Sarah Kinley.

Would she die? Is there a way to prevent it? The answers were ambiguous at best, but Clyde needed to be sure of it before the deadline. If there was a way to cancel out the notebook's power, Sarah might be saved.

Steven wasn't a very socially graceful person. This might have been his fault, as he rarely talks to anyone, or it might be anyone's fault, as nobody really talks to him.

Except Sarah. Steven and Sarah weren't in a relationship, and it was very clear to an outsider that they both preferred each other as intellectuals rather than intimate partners. Though Steven was a genius at logic, Sarah was better at debate, conveying that logic to others. In turn, she sometimes couldn't find exactly what she was trying to say, but Steven could simplify it down to a more neutral concept, so she could sharpen it into a blade suited for striking down falsehoods. In that way, they worked well together. Steven didn't really know Clyde that well, but he respected him in a way. Clyde was pretty smart, but he sometimes got lost in conjecture, couldn't see what was right in front of him. That being said, he still gave Steven a run for his money, at least in the department of intelligence. Steven liked a challenge, and he was always willing to let Clyde make that challenge.

Steven was at Sarah's house, working on homework with her. He knew Sarah pretty well. She was a very independent person, and incredibly strong-willed. She never backed down from an argument, and only accepted defeat if she was wrong, which wasn't often. Steven was going through a list of algebra problems when the conversation he had with Clyde bubbled up. He wondered why it bothered him, so he voiced his thoughts to Sarah.

"I talked with Clyde today," he said off-handedly, to see what she would say.

"Really? You guys don't talk a lot,"

"Yeah, it was kind of strange. He asked about the hype over the Justin Bieber thing,"

"You mean his death?"

"Yeah. It was really weird because he asked me very nonchalantly. I said it might have been about Justin Bieber, and he asked why. I gave him some logic mumbo jumbo. I had really just heard them talking. He then through me a curveball, saying he had already theorized that Justin Bieber died, because he passed by a locker with his picture and two dates, one being 2014,"

"Objection!" Sarah suddenly yelled, finger pointed straight at me.

"You really need to stop playing that game, it's starting to creep me out how much you think it's cool,"

"It is cool, and you know it. Anyway, though our schedules are different, me and Clyde happen to have the same teachers. Now, the locker in question, which I happened to see, is across the hall, in the middle school section of the building. Since we're in high school, it raises a lot of questions as to why he was there so early in the morning, and why he walked all the way to you before asking what was going on,"

"Well, maybe he had some business over there?"

"Then why did he stop to examine the fine print of a picture on a locker? It only leads to one conclusion,"

"And that would be?"

"That Clyde was expecting this to happen, and he was intentionally seeking out confirmation for conclusions he had already drawn,"

"But that's not that suspicious,"

"Then why did he ask you that question, and why did he justify his own question with an explanation? You'd only do that to avoid suspicion. If it had been an innocent question, he wouldn't have brought up the picture. He would have just moved on. But he needed a reason to ask that question, at least in his mind,"

"So what, he killed Justin Bieber?"

"Well… No, but,"

"It's an interesting conjecture, but there are no real implications. Maybe he just didn't want to be seen talking about Bieber without a reason because he doesn't like Bieber,"

"That's a possibility,"

"Whatever. So, what about Clyde?"

"What do you mean?"

"You don't want to follow up on this?"'

"Not unless more suspicion is raised,"

"Alright. Now, what is the answer to number 5?"

"Stop being so lazy and do it yourself!"

"Hahahahaha,"

"Did you get rid of the Death Note?"

"Yeah, left it in some kid's backpack,"

"He won't suspect you?"

"Nah, we'll be fine,"

"Won't you lose ownership after a while?"

"Whatever, just more evidence removed. But, if it does happen, don't rat me out to the kid, you got it?"

"…Don't tell me what to do,"

"I'll do what I want, Tara,"

"…What are you doing with the boy?"

"I don't know, he's just the scapegoat. Even if they do find him, they can't get anything on him. He'd never try to use the note, not nearly as much as I did,"

"What did you do with the pages?"

"Burned them,"


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Hypothesis

Clyde couldn't believe what he was seeing. He mulled over the page, refreshing time and time again, but the results didn't change.

Of the five criminals whose names he wrote down, only one died. He researched into further detail, but the results he got were pretty vague. He assumed it was a heart attack, but the exact details were out of his reach. Which left only one question to debate.

Why did only one die? It seemed like there was a pattern, but as far as Clyde could tell he only had King, Bieber, and this one. There was very little connection between them socially or occupationally. If he hadn't performed this experiment he would have assumed it was celebrities that was the key, but that was stupid. The real question was: what about celebrities would make them susceptible to the notebook that also applied to this guy? He decided to look on the victim's social media one more time to be sure, and then he saw it.

Photos. The other two that had photographs strangely didn't have actual pictures of their face. In fact, one of them had a full body picture with the face concealed. But the third guy had pictures of his face. Clyde switched back to the site and fiddled around with it, looking for other rosters. He found that he could toggle it to show faces. He decided to do this right. He chose two people with the original setting to kill, and two other people to kill using pictures. The next update would be in one hour. It was time to test his conjecture.

While waiting for the update, Clyde sifted through the internet, looking for some sort of confirmation of the notebook. It seemed dumb, but if Clyde was right, then someone else had to have used the note. The ripped pages indicated something, and that something was that another person wanted to erase evidence that the notebook worked. But that raised the contradiction of the note. Why would someone so proficient in hiding their tracks leave such a big piece of evidence? It didn't matter either way though. Conjecture alone was pointless in it couldn't be tested. But that was beside the point. Clyde scoured the far reaches of Google, but found that it knew about just as much as Clyde, minus the notebook. In any case, Clyde did manage to waste about an hour, which was his original intention to begin with, so something was accomplished.

He checked back on the site, and found that the two people with their pictures revealed were removed from the page, but the other two were still there. This confirmed Clyde's hypothesis. To use the notebook, a face and a name was needed. But was that it?

Suddenly, another thought sent a chill down his spine. The people running this prison aren't stupid. They would notice that a number of their prisoners are dying of heart attacks, and at around similar times or clumps. Then an even more disturbing thought hit Clyde.

He was currently the murderer of around five people. Three were prisoners, but did he have the right to judge. The sudden weight of the crime that he had committed finally sunk in. In disgust, he felt bile rise from his mouth, but he held it in. He picked up a trash can on the side of his desk and vomited into it. He breathed heavily, the sour tang stained on his teeth. He shook from the sudden panic attack. Then, he gained a slight bit of clarity.

First things first, clean up the mess. His mother was downstairs, but the door would have kept the sound in. He needed to hide the evidence of what he had done. First, he scoured his bathroom cabinets for any supplies. He came out with some decent cleaning tools, and got to work. He flushed down the contents of the trash can, cleaning the plastic bin thoroughly. He then checked around the area, washing down and wiping any traces left. He then washed out his mouth, brushing his teeth with a spare brush and rinsing with enough water to drown a grown man. He then looked in the mirror at himself, trying to come to terms with what he had done. Could he continue, knowing that it led to people's deaths? Clyde didn't even know the answer to his question, and an outsider could clearly tell how detached Clyde's actions were from his perception. If someone could summarize his feelings, it would most likely include all the things he wasn't thinking, and all the connections he hadn't made. Desensitization isn't easy to facilitate, but when the murders are just faces on a screen, names and actions of people you don't know? Who knows if Clyde understood exactly the weight of what had occurred thanks to him. He reasoned off his crimes, brushing them off slowly, and convincingly. He moved on to other matters, hiding his disgust in a dark corner.

He resumed his activities with his computer, searching through the site one more time before closing the tab. He searched up on Google other sites with up to date rosters on prisoners. He found a fairly decent site, not as good as the first one though. Only some criminals had photos released, and the site only updated once a week. Despite this, Clyde was thankful that e at least had a working site again. He shut his computer down, and put up the notebook for the day.

Steven couldn't shake some foreboding feeling inside of him. It gnawed at him, like a beast born of anxiety and paranoia. He didn't have any major assessments on his schedule, so he wasn't sure why he felt this way. He rummaged through his bookshelf, perhaps looking for a book that might put his mind off of this terrible feeling, but he came up empty handed. He sat down at a chair, trying to find what set him on edge like he was, but nothing came to mind. He pondered it for a while, but decided it was pointless. He almost called up Sarah, but hesitated. Why did he? Did he just not feel social today? Nothing made sense, least of all how he felt. Steven turned on the television, and slowly waited for his panic attack to cease.

It didn't, and maybe that was what was so strange. Either way, Steven slept uneasily that night.

"Are you sure you chose this boy by chance?"

"…Maybe it had something to do with that last note,"

"Do you mean the note you didn't remove?"

"Yeah. Maybe, using him, I'll find out why that notes in there. But more importantly, are you sure that you don't know who had this before me?"

"Yes. The person must have forfeited ownership, and I happened to pick it up,"

"But doesn't that mean the original's dead?"

"It seems that way, but why this person left it after killing the Shinigami I'll never know,"


End file.
